Name

swab — swap adjacent bytes

Synopsis

#define _XOPEN_SOURCE        /* See feature_test_macros(7) */
#include <unistd.h>
void swab( const void *restrict from,
  void *restrict to,
  ssize_t n);
 

DESCRIPTION

The swab() function copies n bytes from the array pointed to by from to the array pointed to by to, exchanging adjacent even and odd bytes. This function is used to exchange data between machines that have different low/high byte ordering.

This function does nothing when n is negative. When n is positive and odd, it handles n−1 bytes as above, and does something unspecified with the last byte. (In other words, n should be even.)

RETURN VALUE

The swab() function returns no value.

ATTRIBUTES

For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7).

Interface Attribute Value
swab() Thread safety MT-Safe

CONFORMING TO

POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD.

SEE ALSO

bstring(3)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 5.11 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man−pages/.


  Copyright 1993 David Metcalfe (davidprism.demon.co.uk)

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References consulted:
    Linux libc source code
    Lewine's _POSIX Programmer's Guide_ (O'Reilly & Associates, 1991)
    386BSD man pages
Modified Sat Jul 24 17:52:15 1993 by Rik Faith (faithcs.unc.edu)
Modified 2001-12-15, aeb